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Whole Foods Stores Accepting CSA Boxes

by Joanne Camas

on 02/09/11 at 05:04 PM

Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) and the Whole Foods network of stores are taking part in an unusual case of mutual back-scratching in Florida. All Whole Foods stores in the state are taking part in the program, and the company says more stores across the country hope to join the initiative.

The Miami Herald reports that Whole Foods is encouraging farms to drop off deliveries for CSA customers at the nearest Whole Foods store, where the CSA subscribers will then call to collect their farm-fresh produce.

But won't this cut into Whole Foods' produce sales? Perhaps not. As one CSA member told the Herald, "Before I did not come as often. Now this forces me to come once a week. I just wait until I come to get my box and I do my shopping."

CSA - a system where you buy a share in a farm for a season and then get weekly veggies and/or fruit every week - is a popular way to get the freshest local produce, and it also lends support and stability to farmers.

As Epi-logger/farmer Ethan Book commented a while back, "The beauty of a CSA is that it makes a wonderful connection between the farmer and the consumers, a connection that is quickly fading in the 21st century.

"No longer are farmers nameless and faceless people producing food that ends up in massive stores, now they are friends and neighbors connected to the community and all the people and businesses that make that community."